21 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN ary Some of the sequence , such as the 5care at t e s\\ imming pool, are in their own way c1aS5lC. The actIng of most of the cast isn't up to the effects, with Kent Smith as the Cat Womdn's husband,. Jane .Randolph Jack Holt, dnd Alan NapIer Wntten bv De Witt Bodeen; .c nematography by Nichõla.s MU5u- raca; edItIng hv Mark Robson (Bleecker St. CInema, June 10 ) CAT PEOPLE-Working with his team-the vbu- dl con ultdnt Ferdindndo Scarfiotti. the cine- m to&rapher John Bailey, and the composer 9Iorglo M?roder-the director Paul Schrader IS perfectIl}-g an apocalyptic swank Each shot looks lIke an album cover for records yOU on't ever want to play The picture (it'sW set New Orl,?ans) is mean t to be poetic and le.g ndary It has all the furnishings for a relIgIous narrative about Eros and Thanatos but what's going on is that Nastassia Kinski and Malcolm McDowell-the sister and roth.er \Vith bldck leupards in ide them-dre JumpIng out of their skins and leaving little puddles of guck behind. The obscure proceed- Ings are often ludicrous (especially in the orange-c,olored primal-drea sequences), yet you don! ,get to pd S the tIme by laughing, because It s all so queasy and so confusingly put together that you feel shut out. Just when a scene begIns to hold some interest Schrader cuts away from it; the crucial thing seem to be happening between the scenes. The film IS comatose, you're brought into it only by the camera tricks or the special- eff cts horrors, or, perhaps, the nude scenes. WIth John Heard, Annette O'Toole, Ruby Dee, and Ed Begley, Jr. From a script bv Alan Ormsby that's a total reworkIng of the much simpler 1942 film. (5/3/82) (Criterion Thea tres ) CHARIOT OF FIRE-The story of the courage and the tnumph .of .two young runners who repre- sen ed Bntdln In the 1924 Olympics, held in Pans The runners-Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross), a ealthy Jewish boy who is a student at Cambndge, and Eric Liddell (Ian Charle- son), a Scottish divinity student-win be- cause. they have something to run for. The unb.elIevably self-possessed Abrahams runs agaInst anti-Semiti.c snobbery and prejudices, and the devout LIddell runs in an ecstatic state, because "when I run, 1 can feel His pleasure." The picture is a piece of tech- n.ological. lyriC1 m h.eld to&ether by the gl ue of simple In?ed herOI sentIment; basically, its ap eal IS In watchIng a couple of guys win t elr races. Produced by David Puttnam, directed by Hugh Hudson (it's hi" début film), from Coli.n Wella d's script. Cinematog- raph) by Da.vld Wa.tkIn, mUSIC by Vangel is Papathanasslou WIth Lindsay Anderson John Glelgud, Al ce Kr ge, Ian Holm, CheryÍ C mpbell, DennIs Chnstopher, Brad Davis, NIgel Hav rs. NIcholas Farrell, Nigel Daven- port, P tnck Magee, and David Yelland a the Pnnce of Wales (10/26/81) (R.K.O Century Art, Lincoln Plaza, and Criterion Theatres. . _ _ (]I Manhattan; through June 3.) TH.E CHASE (1966 )-Marlon Brando as the sher- Iff of a co rupt, blood-lusting Texas town in the mythIcal America of liberal sadomas- ochi tic fantasies Lillian Hellman wrote the screenplay (from Horton Foote's material), dnd the httle foxes really took over. Our vines ha ve no tender grapes left in this hellhole of wife-swa ping, nigger-hating, and nigger- lover hatIng, where people are motivated by dir!y sex or big money, and you can tell whIch as soon as they say their first lines. Many people all over the world blame Texas for the a sd inatiun of KennedY-ds if the murder had boiled up out of the unconscious of the people here-a.nd the film exploit and confirm.s thIS hyst ncal view, going so far dS t provIde a facsImile of Jack Ruby's hootlng of Oswald, with a racist (who is, of co.urse, a white, Gentile Southerner) as a sub- stItute for Ruby, and a totally Innocent hero (Robert Redford) as a SubstItute for O wald. The p ?ducer, Sam Spiegel, said that it was about the consequences of affluence," and it d<?e ugge t "La Dol e Vita" on the range LIl Ian I!ellm n pubhcl) expressed her dis- satIsfactIon wIth the results, and it was gen- erally acknowledged that the director Arthur Penn wh? tried to set things on fire ith the old Ehd KdZdn ba700ka), didn't have artistic control over the production But the picture affects some people very strongly, and it ha5 a considerable reputation, especiallv in Eu- S-M-T-W-T-F- 61 7 I 81 : II I t S 5 12 rop . WIth Jane Fonda, Angie Dickinson, Minam Hopkins, E. G Marshall Robert Duvall, Janice Rule, James Fox, a d Henry Hull. (Theatre 80 St Marks; June 10 ) THE CHILDREN1S HOUR (1962)- William Wyler who in 1936 had made "These Three" owdlerized yet very fine version of the' Lil- lIan Hellman play "The Children's Hour" re- turned to the materidl in 1962 and, i the fr er atmosphere of that period, remade it, wIth th chd ge of sexual deviation restored -that IS, WIth the two schoolmistress her- OIn s (Audrey Hepburn and Shirley Mac- LaI e) dccused of lesbianism by one of their pupIls. The result is too self-conscious though; the cinematography by Fran Planer, may som times evoke Balthus, but the atmosphere IS heavy and lugubrious. The e were complaints at the time that the StUdIO had hacked out the center of the film-which IS a bi.t like complaining that a co se has had a vItal organ removed With Mlnam Hopkins, who had been one of the young teachers in the 1936 version as the aunt, Fay Bainter a the rich old vÚlainess' and J af!1es 9arner Hellman, who did th adaptatIon, IS so rough on the Fay Bainter character (when the woman realizes her error and begs forgiveness, it is denied) that one develops a perverse sympathy for her (8th St Playhouse; June 11-12.) DAWN OF !HE DEAD (1.979)- The recently de- ceased nse from theIr graves; they're insatia- bly hu gry, and they cannibalize the living, chompIng . on anyone they can grab The chomped, In turn, become ghouls This idea has already served the director, George A. Rome o, as the subject of his 1968 "Night of the. LIving Dea.d," a heaply made, gray and graII y,. tr ly f I h tenlng mOVIe, but this time he dId. It In shInIng, comic-book color, and on an epIc. scale. The four central characters hol up In a suburban shopping mall and are besIeged there, and for most of the film's two hours and six minutes the audience watches as,. one by one, heads splatter and drip in bnght, gory reds You're supposed to need a trong stomach to sit through this one but It's so stupef ingly obvious and repetitive that you begIn to laugh with relief that you're not bein emotionally affected; it's just a gros -uut. WIth Scot Reiniger, Ken Foree, G ylen Ross, and DavId Emge Made in the PIttsburgh area (5/18/81) (Movieland' through June 10.} , DEATHTR P- This movie is for people who dream of seeIng "Sleuth" agaIn-there must be at least one or two of them. A once successful playw.right (Michael Caine), who specializes In th.nllers, plans to murder a former student (Chnstopher Reeve) and stea] his flawless play, "Deathtrap" The director Sidney Lumet, and t e screenwriter, Jay P;esson Al- len, have deCIded to make the movie version of r Levin's wisecracking whodunit as reahstic as possible. What this comes down to IS a broad obvious movie that looks like an gly play and appears to be a vile vision of hfe, and t the end the staging and editing are so qUIck and muddled that you can't be sure what's happening. With Dyan Cannon Irene Worth, and Henry Jones (4/5/82) ( 72 nd S reet East; through June 3 ) THE DEVILS PLAYGROUND (1976)-The Marist brothers at the Catholic seminary around hi<:h most of the film is set seem to be look- Ing I tO themselv.es, puz.lled and deeply dis- appOInted by theIr own physicality. And the pubescent boys gaze wit.h thu derstruck eyes at the eruptIons of theIr bodIes This semi- 3;utobio raph cal first feature by the Austra- lIan wnter-dlrector Fred Schepisi is alway on the borderline of comedy, because they have all-monks and seminarians alike- been ta ght that "an undisciplined mind is the. Dev.II'5 playground," yet they can't get the r mlnJ off their bodies This isn't an anti-Cathohc movie. Far from it. Schepisl loves these tormented comedians But he look at them ith humorous pagan eyes. His p ssionate .feelIngs are expressed visually-in h themdtlc ,!se of water imagery and in the v brancy of hIS color, which eroticizes the en- VIronment. He's a great filmmaker, with his own softly rhy:thme? style. You fee] he's got the whole thIng fIght WIth the novelist Thomas Keneally as the bald and bewhisk- ered Father arshall; Arthur Dignam as Brother FrancIne, who dreams of being un- derwater, surrounded by beautiful naked nymphs; and NIck Tate as Brother Victor who goes into the city wearing civvies, pick up two women and flIrts and teases right up to t c ve pe of act ual sex, and then esca pes, gaspIng, They nearly had me" (12/7/81) (Bleecker St Cinema; June 11-12.) DINER-A onderf':lJ movie, set in Baltimore, in 1959.. FIve or SIX young men in theIr early twentIes .who .ve known each other since high s hool stIll chn to their late-night bull ses- SIons at the dIner-where, magically, they 3;lways seem to have plenty to talk about. It's hke a comedy club-they take off from each o her, .and their conversation are all overlap- Ing Jokes that are funny without punch hnes. They can sound worldl and sharp, but when these bo s are out wIth girls they're neryous, constn ted, fraudulent, half crazy. r tte , nd dIrected by Barry Levinson, I?Iner IS a great period piece-a look at mIddle-class relations between the sexes just before the sexual revolution. It features some of. the best young actors in the country: Mlc ey Rourke, Ellen Barkin, Daniel Stern, KevIn. Bacon, Steve Guttenberg, Paul Reiser, and TImothy Daly. (4/5/82) (Coronet) DIvA-An up-to-the-minute romantic thriller from France, made by a new director J ean- Jacqu.es Beineix, who has a fabulous amera technIque and l!nder tands the pleasures to be hadjrom a pIcture that doesn't take itself t?O senously The .diva is an awesomely beau- tIful black Amencan soprano (Wilhelmenia Fe:n de.l) wh<? efuses t make recordings Fredenc Andrci IS the wIde-eyed eighteen- year-old postal messenger who adores her, he snea s hIS .Nagra tape machine into her con- cert In Pans so he'll be able to listen to her at home-and all hell breaks loose around him The unfazable he oine (the fourteen-year-old huy. An Luu) IS a post-Godardian toot- sIe-.ln her shor,t-short .skirts and transparent plastIc coat she s a lolhpop wrapped in cello- phane. The film may remind you of Welles' "Touch of Evil;" it's Welles romanticized packaged. It's a mixture of style and chi hanky-panky, but it's genuinely sparkling. In French. (4/19/82) (Plaza.) THE EN OF S MME (1961!- This is one of y suJIro O.lU s qUIet studIes of the drama in mIddle-class family life, and it centers on the character of an Osaka rice-wine manufac- turer. In Japanese (Film Forum; June 6-7.) THE FALLEN IDOL ( 1948 )-Carol Reed and Graham G e ne coll borated on this tricky, highly onglnal thnller. It's about the muddled at- tempt of an eight-year-old boy (Bobby Hen- rey), the son of the French ambassador to En.gland, to pr.otect the embassy butler, BaInes (Ralph RIchardson), whom he idohzes, from a charge of murder. The plot is just about perfect, and there are two wonderful parallel episo es, when the child attempt tu Impart .vItal Information, which two sets of adults. Ignore because they think he's Just prattlIng nonsense. There are terrifying, tense moments, too; the whole movie is very cleverly worked out. Maybe it' too deliber- a.te., thou h, with its stylized lighting and its ngld paCIng-you wait an extra beat between the low-key lines of dialogue. It's too deliber- ate. and oo hushed to be much fun. It's a oht thnller-which is close to a contradic- tIon In te m And the key characters-the decent BaInes and the typist (Michèle Mor-